Worst. Jobs. President. Ever.
Barack Obama continues to set records although the jobs report was not as disappointing as usual this month.
More Americans now work for the government than in manufacturing, farming, fishing, forestry, mining and utilities combined.
The unemployment rate dropped to 8.8% in March according to the Labor Department.
Bloomberg reported:
The U.S. economy added more jobs than forecast in March and the unemployment rate unexpectedly declined to a two-year low of 8.8 percent, a sign the labor- market recovery is gathering speed.
Payrolls increased by 216,000 workers last month after a revised 194,000 gain the prior month, the Labor Department said today in Washington. Economists projected a March gain of 190,000, according to the median estimate in a Bloomberg News survey. The jobless rate dropped from 8.9 percent in February, the fourth straight decrease…
…Factory payrolls increased by 17,000 last month, less than the survey forecast of a 30,000 gain.
The separate survey of households showed the size of the labor force increased by 160,000 in March and employment grew by 291,000. That pushed the share of the population in the labor force up to 58.5 percent from 58.4 percent a month earlier.
Government payrolls decreased by 14,000 last month reflecting cuts at the local level. Federal government employment rose by 1,000.
It would help the economy if America hired more producers and less government workers.
Stephen Moore reported at The Wall Street Journal:
If you want to understand better why so many states—from New York to Wisconsin to California—are teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, consider this depressing statistic: Today in America there are nearly twice as many people working for the government (22.5 million) than in all of manufacturing (11.5 million). This is an almost exact reversal of the situation in 1960, when there were 15 million workers in manufacturing and 8.7 million collecting a paycheck from the government.
It gets worse. More Americans work for the government than work in construction, farming, fishing, forestry, manufacturing, mining and utilities combined. We have moved decisively from a nation of makers to a nation of takers. Nearly half of the $2.2 trillion cost of state and local governments is the $1 trillion-a-year tab for pay and benefits of state and local employees. Is it any wonder that so many states and cities cannot pay their bills?
Every state in America today except for two—Indiana and Wisconsin—has more government workers on the payroll than people manufacturing industrial goods. Consider California, which has the highest budget deficit in the history of the states. The not-so Golden State now has an incredible 2.4 million government employees—twice as many as people at work in manufacturing. New Jersey has just under two-and-a-half as many government employees as manufacturers. Florida’s ratio is more than 3 to 1. So is New York’s.
Even Michigan, at one time the auto capital of the world, and Pennsylvania, once the steel capital, have more government bureaucrats than people making things. The leaders in government hiring are Wyoming and New Mexico, which have hired more than six government workers for every manufacturing worker.
Meanwhile, Gallup reported that underemployment rose to 20.3% in March.
